


Colors I've Never Seen

by kirani



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background SMH - Freeform, Colors, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hockey kinda happens in the background, M/M, One Shot, Poetry, Slow Burn, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 18:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirani/pseuds/kirani
Summary: Derek Nurse has always enjoyed autumn. The air is crisp, the leaves are fun to crunch, and his favorite sweaters can come out of storage, but he is blown away by the colors.They had started creeping in during the Tadpole Tour at Samwell last spring, and it was what made him commit to the school. He had been leaning towards another school, in all honesty, but once early spring started to blossom in soft greens and pinks and yellows around him, nothing could make him walk away from Samwell.Because his Soulmate was there.





	Colors I've Never Seen

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to my beta Draskireis for helping me sort out my massive amount of feelings about Nursey in this verse.

_All I want_

_Is to know your name_

_And whisper it in your ear_

_With your arms around my neck._

_You've haunted me in colors_

_I've never seen_

_I feel strange and unprotected,_

_But I'm weightless like I'm falling on the moon._

“Manta Rays”, Ludo

~

Derek Nurse has always enjoyed autumn. The air is crisp, the leaves are fun to crunch, and his favorite sweaters can come out of storage, but he is blown away by the colors.

They had started creeping in during the Tadpole Tour at Samwell last spring, and it was what made him commit to the school. He had been leaning towards another school, in all honesty, but once early spring started to blossom in soft greens and pinks and yellows around him, nothing could make him walk away from Samwell.

Because his Soulmate was there.

The colors fade slowly when he returns to New York but the memory of them lingers. His dreams are in color now, imagining a life lived in full color, but they always seem a bit off. He looks at his world and wonders what colors things are. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time.

All his life, everyone had assumed things about him his whole life and he refused to be what they expected. He knows his soul, and it was kind, caring, and soft. And so he sank behind a shield of nonchalance and never let on how much he yearned. He became “chill,” forever nonplussed by his lack of color vision and anything else besides. He lets snide comments pass him by. He lets judging looks glance off. He protects his soul.

Derek has always been a bit of a romantic; he had hoped for early childhood colors, with a friendship growing into something more, though of course that hadn’t materialized. Then, he had hoped for a whirlwind romance in Paris on the trip with his parents the summer before he went to Andover. But he still hasn’t seen the colors of Paris and he didn’t understand the appeal of it in grayscale. Finally, at Andover, he had begun to think he wouldn’t have a Soulmate anywhere and had begun to write morose poetry about a life devoid of color. It was dramatic and he knew it.

By the time he gets to Samwell, he aches for his Soulmate. He knows his Soulmate could be platonic, of course. There are many that are. But either way, he longs for someone who knows him so well the universe lights aflame when they meet. He would love them for that, whether it was a romantic link or not. He yearns to be _known_.

~

When he drives into Samwell that fall, the colors trickle back in, brightening from a muted glow so faintly he doesn’t notice it emerge from the greys at first. Soon enough, he sees them all again. He gasps in wonder at the brightly painted houses, the clear blue sky, and the trees! They’re still mainly green, it’s too early for true fall foliage, but here and there, a tree has already ignited in bright shades of red, orange, and yellow and it sparks something deep inside his chest, setting him aflame, too.

He knows, objectively, that people go on trips to see the leaves change with their Soulmates, it’s a romantic cliché. He never understood it before, but he does in that moment. The colors blend and sway on their branches and entrance him. This. This is the color of love.

By the time Derek realizes he’s crying, his dad is already helping him out of the car at his dorm and pulling him into a hug.

“¿Qué tienes, Derek?” he asks softly.

“Los colores,” Derek whispers, burying his face in his father’s shoulder, “son bonitos.”

_They’re beautiful._

Derek can’t see it, but his parents share a smile over his head.

~

He hasn’t narrowed down who his Soulmate is by the time the season starts, though they are definitely somewhere on campus. The colors are vibrant and pulsing at all times and autumn has blazed to life in her full glory.

Derek – they call him Nursey now – takes to laying in leaf piles and spending hours outdoors, wrapped up in layers and waxing poetic about the season. His new friends humor him, calling him “city boy,” and chirping that he had never seen a leaf in his life.

He had, of course, but autumn in grayscale quite literally paled in comparison to Samwell in color. But he hasn’t told any of them that he had only just gotten his colors so he doesn’t explain. They would chirp him into an early grave. No, he just keeps an eye out for potential Soulmates.

He isn’t sure what he’s looking for, exactly. Just an attraction or connection of some kind. A spark of a potential relationship. He’s been on a few dates in his brief time at Samwell but he hasn’t felt a spark. He had thought at first it might be Chris Chow, their goalie and his fellow “frog” as the freshman were called. Chris had let slip that he was new to his colors and had Nursey gotten his and isn’t Samwell just beautiful? But Chris had later confirmed that he hadn’t gotten his colors on the Taddy Tour, only once he got to campus that fall. Even so, Nursey found a best friend in Chowder.

Still, he is feeling more known by this team. Shitty he already knew from Andover, and he has only gotten more fired up since then. Nursey enjoys his righteous anger, even if sometimes he goes a bit overboard. Bitty is awesome, making him feel at home even when he misses his parents and his city. Ransom and Holster have made it their mission to get him to bond with his fellow d-man, a frog they call Dex, and, well... they definitely mean well.

Dex doesn’t seem to be having any of it, though. He is always ready for a fight. Nursey is pretty sure he doesn’t even care what he’s fighting about, he just always wants to fight. He just has that kind of temper. Nursey, frustratingly, finds himself unable to back down, to pull up his shield of chill. He’s written a few too many metaphors about his bright red temper and his bright red hair and his bright red cheeks and...

He just gets lost in the _colors_ of Dex. His red hair is bright in a way he hadn’t realized hair could be, the first rays of the sunrise, burning against the dusty sky. His eyes are worse. Before he had his colors, Nursey thinks he would have assumed Dex’s eyes were green or blue, given how light they were. But they were a golden brown, like the crunchiest leaves littering the Samwell campus. He wants to get lost in them while he catalogues his freckles under his fingertips. If he would just. Stop. Fighting.

It’s a problem.

But otherwise, he is in love with everything about Samwell. He’s taking courses he enjoys that challenge him in ways he hadn’t counted on, he has friends he can rely on who understand him, and he is playing _great_ hockey.

Because even though Nursey and Dex spar constantly off the ice, once they gear up they are a well-oiled machine. It defies the odds but it makes a strange amount of sense to Derek, who has always enjoyed irony and opposites.

Finally, the season begins and their first away game is looming. As he sits on the bus, he waits for his vision to fade into the old familiar greys, but they don’t. At first, he thinks he’s just been around his Soulmate long enough that the colors are more permanent, but by the end of warm ups, Chris is bemoaning his colors fading, and Derek has to face the facts. His Soulmate is here with him.

Now that he thinks about it, his colors are always brightest when he’s with his team. They tend to fade slightly when he heads to the English building at the far corner of campus. Have they been trying to tell him for weeks?

His mind whirs with possibilities all through the strategy session and it isn’t until Dex whacks him upside the head with a glove and tells him to “fucking focus already” that he gets it out of his head. He’ll muse on his Soulmate after they win this game.

~

Something changes with Dex after the season starts.

Derek doesn’t notice it at first, in his mad search for his Soulmate among the ranks of SMH, but once he exhausts every possibility he can and finds no matches, he realizes he and Dex have barely fought since that first away game.

He’s being more patient, he’s listening when Derek points out a flaw in his argument, he’s rising to anger much less quickly. It’s... nice.

It’s confusing.

So Derek does what he always does and takes out his poetry journal. It’s already filled with scribbles about infuriating inability to just _let it go_ when it comes to Dex, and some poems that are definitely not seeing the light of day that compare Dex to a variety of beautiful things. What’s one more poem about his d-man partner?

He stumbles through a few poor metaphors, trying to understand this truce they have somehow built, trying to sort through the butterflies in his stomach, but he’s not happy with any of them. He eventually gives up and decides to mull over his confusion on another day.

Nothing is more confusing than the day, a week after he notices their new normal, that Dex offers to teach him what he was doing. Granted, it was Nursey’s fault that he was patching drywall in the first place, but still. Derek had expected him to grumble and complain the whole time, but Dex was working quietly, so he took a chance.

“Do you want help?”

Dex looks up, surprise evident on his features. “Sure. Hand me that xacto knife?”

Nursey looks into the toolbox and extracts the yellow tool.

“You’re gonna trust me with a knife, Poindexter?” he chirps.

Dex just rolls his eyes and takes the proffered tool.

Nursey smiles to himself and hands Dex various things – screens, tapes, scrapers, spackle – and Dex explains each step of the repair until the bit of wall no longer showed the imprint of his elbow after losing his battle with gravity mid staircase.

“Think you can handle the painting after this spackle dries, Nurse?” Dex cocks an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll give it a shot,” Nurse smiles.

“Great. First, pie.”

Dex stands and starts tidying his toolbox after Nursey spent the last half hour pawing through it. Derek just watches. There hadn’t been a single argument. They had worked together off the ice. It feels good.

Once the toolbox is to Dex’s apparent satisfaction, he stands and holds a hand out to hoist Nursey up beside him. Nursey feels himself blush but shakes it off and follows Dex to the kitchen.

~

The next victim of Nursey’s clumsiness is Holster's glasses. It isn’t entirely Nursey’s fault, the screw had surely already been loose, but he still feels horrible. He locates the tiny screw and begs Dex to fix it. Dex raises an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t know how to use a screwdriver, Nurse?”

Derek gapes for a moment. Surely Dex was not suggesting _he_ fix the glasses?

“I don’t have one,” he says finally, unable to put his thoughts into words.

Dex just huffs a laugh and pulls out his toolbox. He sits Nursey down at the kitchen table and hands him a tiny screwdriver. Derek tries a couple of times to line up all the various parts but something always slides out of place. Finally, Dex takes pity on him and holds the frame of the glasses with one hand and Derek’s hand with the other, guiding his movements. Derek tries his hardest not to stare at Dex’s blush. Finally, the screw is tightly in place again.

“I did it!” Derek shouts when Dex takes the glasses and moves the leg back and forth, testing the joint and nodding his approval. “Holster I fixed your glasses!” he shouts to the Haus at large. There is a large whoop from another room and Derek follows the sound to his friend.

He surely imagined the soft chuckle behind him in the kitchen, though.

After that, Dex patiently walks him through sanding the sharpness off a mug Nursey chips, rehanging a photo Nursey somehow knocks off the wall, nail and all, and sewing a button back onto his favorite shirt. Through it all, Dex never shouts. He never picks a fight. He never does anything worse than make a couple of chirps about Nursey ditching his Home Economics class at his fancy school.

And Nursey doesn’t push back, even when he’s frustrated. He blames it on his brain being all too occupied with how Dex’s hair shines in the evening sun while he gently explains things. Their chirps are gentle and bordering on flirtatious at times and Derek has to mentally scold himself for flirting with a straight boy. But it’s worth it to see Dex’s smiles when he actually finishes each task.

It’s all going really well until the moment Nursey slips up and names a color. He’s been doing really well since he got to Samwell to not actually let on that he could see colors. Some of the team made it quite obvious, like Chowder, while some were reserved about their vision, like Jack. He doesn’t even know if most of the team can see color or not. But it feels like private information.

He’s talking with Dex, Ransom, and Holster when it happens. The two juniors figured out they were platonic Soulmates the end of first semester freshman year when they carpooled home for the holidays. They have some ridiculous name for themselves – Soulbros? – and Nursey was just enjoying himself and was caught off guard. Ransom was chirping Holster for his paleness and Nursey had just blurted it out.

“Your eyes are like, strikingly blue though.”

“Why thank you, Nursey,” Holster gives a tiny bow. “See, Rans? Nursey appreciates my colors unlike some people.”

“Wait, Nursey, you have your colors?” Ransom replies.

“Oh, yeah, I do,” Nursey answers, caught off guard. “Nearly a year now? Yeah.”

“Swawesome,” Holster grins. “Do you know who your Soulmate is?”

“No idea,” Nursey shrugs. “It’s chill.”

Dex looks at him funny, but the conversation moves on.

But then Dex started asking questions.

Later, Dex asks him about it when they’re alone.

“I really don’t know who it is, just someone at Samwell. Why?”

“Um,” Dex answers, blushing to the roots of his hair.

“You okay, bro?” Nursey asks.

Dex nods and chews his lip. “Yep, I’m great. All good. Dandy.”

Nursey raises an eyebrow at his friend – are they friends now? He thinks they are – and Dex blushes darkly again but doesn’t explain.

~

Nursey tries to drop it but now his curiosity is getting the better of him. Dex is acting too weird. When he had gone through the roster – discretely of course – and mapped out as many of his teammates as possible, he had just figured Dex didn’t have his colors. He’d never said anything about a Soulmate or any colors and Derek hadn’t honestly been that bothered about it. They were still fighting a lot then. Now, well, Bitty calls it “bickering like an old married couple,” and that should have been a clue.

It bugs him for a long time until he finally just outright asks Dex.

“Do you have your colors?”

He blurts it out in the middle of a chill afternoon study session on the hideous green couch.

Dex’s head snaps up and his face blushes bright pink so fast Derek gets a little dizzy with it.

“What?”

“Chill, Dexy,” Nursey rolls his eyes, trying to recover his own chill. “I’m just curious.”

“Um, yeah I do,” Dex mumbles, turning back to his homework, but his eyes don’t move across the screen and his blush doesn’t fade.

“When?” Derek asks after another moment.

“Um, the prospective student tour. Back in March,” Dex tells his laptop. “What about you?”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

Dex raises an eyebrow and chuckles. “That wasn’t a yes or no question, Nurse.”

“Oh, I mean, the same time. Then it faded when I went back to the city and came back when I moved into the dorms. So. Someone on campus.”

“Right,” Dex says.

They go back to work for a moment longer before Dex blurts out, “Do your colors fade when we go on roadies?”

“Oh,” Nurse stutters. “Um, no. No they don’t.”

“Mine either,” Dex says, studying his fingernails.

“I still can’t figure it out though,” Nurse barrels on, rambling in his embarrassment and begging his heart to _chill_ already, this is just a _coincidence_. “Ransom and Holster have each other. Jack had his before he met me, so did Bitty. Shitty got his when Lardo started at Samwell. Ollie and Wicks... I think they’re each others’ Soulmates actually. Chris didn’t get his until the start of the semester. There’s no one else I’m close enough to that they would be _this bold._ ”

“Come on, Nurse, use that big old brain of yours,” Dex interrupts, his features scrunched up in annoyance.

“Um,” Nursey says, suddenly unwilling to say it aloud.

“Eloquent,” Dex chirps.

“Well,” Nursey clears his throat. “I guess there’s one more. I _guess_ we’re friends.”

He smirks after he finishes speaking and is met with a grin from Dex.

“Yeah,” Dex says. “We’re friends, Nurse.”

“Chill,” Nursey says. Dex rolls his eyes right on cue.

Nursey holds out his fist for a bump and Dex looks at it like it offends him.

“What the hell, Nurse?”

“Oh, um, platonic Soulmate fist bump?”

Dex’s face falls. “Platonic?”

“Um, yeah? You’re straight, so,” Derek starts.

“Am I now?” Dex interrupts, crossing his arms over his chest. “News to me.”

“Excuse me?” Derek squeaks, voice somehow jumping three octaves, then clears his throat. “Do you _not_ think this is platonic?”

“Well I had hoped it wouldn’t be,” Dex smirks, and leans into Nursey’s space, eyes half-lidded and cheeks bright with color.

Nursey panics. That’s the only explanation. Instead of melting into Dex, he freezes, not sure what exactly is happening right now, and Dex must feel the change in his posture. He pulls back. His eyes look hurt.

“Dex—“

“Sorry,” he huffs, then snaps his laptop shut, stuffs it in his bag and flees the Haus.

“Fuck,” Nursey tells the empty room.

~

The next week is hell. Dex is avoiding him whenever they’re not on the ice and Nursey feels his absence deep in his chest. His colors remain mockingly bright and he writes angry poetry about them. He can’t wrap his head around what had happened though.

First of all, Dex wasn’t straight. Nursey tended to put people he met into boxes. Potential romantic interest and no potential romantic interest. The second box was filled with most of the world, frankly, since most people he met weren’t worth the time of day, much less a pass to see his heart and potentially break it. It also had people in monogamous relationships and people who weren’t interested in men. He had put Dex in that box.

Sure, he had written odes to him, but how could he not? The boy was beautiful, Nursey’s favorite season come to life with a sharp tongue and a patient heart. His poetry journals were full of autumnal metaphors that tended to allude to freckles as stars and other mushy romantic tropes. But he had never consciously thought about Dex as a potential romantic interest. Had he?

Second of all, Dex was probably his Soulmate. It was the only thing that made sense. His proximity was the only one not accounted for. And if it was someone else on the team that he wasn’t as close to they would have faded by now. Muted to show him that he was on the wrong path. But they hadn’t. In fact, Derek was fairly certain they were sticking around longer and stronger even when he wasn’t near the team these days. Because of his growing friendship with Dex.

His Soulmate.

His heartbroken Soulmate who had wanted a romantic bond with him and then got rejected. And was now ignoring him.

To be fair, Nursey is pretty much hiding at the moment, tucked in the back of the library and trying to write about literally anything besides hurt golden eyes for his poetry homework. He crosses out another line and sighs, dropping his head to the table beside his journal.

“I need to talk to you.”

Nursey looks up to find Dex standing over him.

“Oh, hi,” Nursey sputters. “Okay.”

Dex sits down across the table from him.

“Look, I’m not great at talking about this shit so I’m just gonna say it all and could you please just listen?”

Nursey nods.

“I had a hunch that you were my Soulmate, like, a few weeks ago? That sounds right. But you kinda confirmed it when you told me about the roadies. And, well, I like you. And I thought you maybe liked me, too. So I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable and I would like to be friends again. And it’s cool if we’re platonic Soulmates. Though I’m definitely not straight. Just to, y’know, make that clear.”

Nursey nods again.

“Okay, I’m done now, Nurse, you can talk,” Dex rolls his eyes.

“Thank you for trusting me with this moment,” Derek smirks, spouting Shitty’s Official Coming Out line.

“Oh shut up, Nurse,” Dex groans. “If anything was the moment, it was the one I came out to you and immediately tried to kiss you. Sorry about that. Again.” His cheeks blush prettily and Nursey’s smirk softens into a smile.

“I liked that moment,” Nursey says quietly.

“You didn’t seem to when it was happening,” Dex mutters, picking at the table.

“You caught me off guard is all,” Nursey counters. “Can we try again?”

Dex huffs. “How about _you_ put your heart on the line this time?” he says, still speaking into the table.

Nurse pushes up from his chair and leans over the table, crooking a finger under Dex’s chin. He tilts it up, pulling Dex’s golden eyes up to his.

“You have the most beautiful eyes,” he says, pouring his heart out into those words. He sees Dex’s face soften, moving from anxious to begrudgingly charmed. “Everything about you is beautiful and I would be honored to be your romantic Soulmate.” Dex swallows, hard, but doesn’t look away from Nursey’s face.

“I would really like to kiss you, Will,” Derek continues. “May I?”

Will rolls his eyes and mutters “sap,” but he nods.

Derek leans forward and just like that, they’re kissing. Derek feels it in every nerve ending all at once. It lights him up inside like the changing trees; it burns him up like the setting sun; it crinkles through him like the perfect leaf pile. That is to say, it’s _everything_.

They break apart after several heated moments to a book slamming onto the table and a stern student worker who not-so-kindly points them to the door.

They pack up their bags and giggle and clutch each other’s hands all the way back to Nursey’s dorm, stopping whenever they find a good wall to make out against for a while before pulling each other onward. When they finally make it to his room, Nursey fumbles his key and Dex laughs at him good-naturedly, before they finally get in and he presses Derek against the door.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for so long,” Dex mouths against Derek’s neck.

“Fuck, Will,” Derek whines, and is rewarded with a groan from his partner.

“I like it when you call me Will,” he says, before attacking Derek’s neck fiercely.

“God, Will, you have no idea how much I wanted this,” Derek rambles. “How _long_ I wanted this. You are so beautiful and patient and _passionate_ and I just can’t believe I can actually have you after all this time.”

Will straightens and looks Derek in the eye.

“I need you to stop talking like that before I come in my pants,” he says with a serious face, then grins.

Derek moans, grips Will’s waist and flips them around, shoving him against the door instead and kissing him again.

They barely make it to team dinner.

~

That summer, Derek finally gets to see his city in full color. Dex had left for winter break a couple of days before Derek so his colors had already begun to fade by the time he got home for the holidays. But the summer was a different story, because William Poindexter was coming home with him.

They leave Will’s truck at Samwell and take the train in so they don’t have to park it in the city, and Nursey bounces with excitement the entire way. He spends the whole trip glued to the window, watching the scenery and scribbling in his journal, and he grins at Will every few minutes, delighting in his presence. Will just rolls his eyes and smiles.

“Nursey, _chill_ ,” he says when the city comes into view out the window and Nursey squeals.

Derek just clutches tightly to his boyfriend’s hand and grins.

His city is spectacular in color and it’s even better with his Soulmate by his side. He drags Will to all of his favorite haunts and they spend an entire day in Central Park, wandering around and enjoying the greenery, food, and people watching. They go to Stonewall and swoon over the rainbow crosswalk and flags flying outside. Derek even lets Will drag him to Top of the Rock so he can admire the sprawl of the city in technicolor glow.

He’s never loved his city more and he’s never loved his Soulmate more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is the most introspective thing I've ever written, totally different from my usual dialogue heavy style, so please let me know what you think! I'm on tumblr at willdexpoindexter where I like to cry about these frogs.


End file.
